Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[Scar]

The banners seem interesting...

Dunno if I want to pull on them though...

Isn't the anniversary right around the corner? I wish we had an idea of what was going to show up there.

Oh and I got fuujin's bsb and super items.

[Meeplelard]

Just beat the Final Nightmare.  Team was...not the best set up on skills, but I think I chose the right characters for my purposes.

Cloud: Darkmoon (was useless), Lifesiphon, Truthseeker RM
Cloud has all his SSB+s to date, so a +30 Cloud, and with Finishing Touch, his use was obvious.  Was MVP on shear fact of taking out most of the last phase by himself.

Tyro: Lifesiphon, Dragoon Jump, Pride of the Red Wings RM
Tyro as usual is useful in all Nightmares since Nightmare synergy means his crap stats are offset, and the flexibility is incredible.  Add in his BSB for Magic Blink, and Sentinel Grimoire mitigates at least some of Phase 3's damage, and there you go.

Yuna: Healing stuff, who cares.
I have her BSB and realized I'll need on-command Medicas as well as Soul Break ones in a pinch, I can lose some DPS, so here we are.

Zack: Powerchain, Full Charge, Rebel's Might.
He's my best Chain Charger, I want to say, between having Air Strike and Rush Assault, so went with him.  Chaincharging is really useful here, so glad I was able to fit one in.

Leon: Pound, Bladeblitz (ended up useless), Dr. Mog's Teachings RM.
I didn't want to use my Shout RWs immediately because of Vengeance so Hand of the Emperor proved a valid stand-in for Phase 1, and his BSB, despite being resisted, still did good damage.

I didn't really have much of a strategy beyond Cloud focusing heavily on building gauge such that he would fire off FInishing touch near the end of Phase 2, such that with 2 shots and the rest of the party, I should be able to out DPS the final phase.  Won with just Cloud and Tyro alive, but I full Medal'd on turns, so all was well.


Glad those 12 are done with.

[Cmdr_King]

Nightmare Select 100 gem tossed Zack's Apocalypse at me.  Neat.

[Reiska]

The banners seem interesting...

Dunno if I want to pull on them though...

Isn't the anniversary right around the corner? I wish we had an idea of what was going to show up there.

Oh and I got fuujin's bsb and super items.

Nightmare Select is a terrible banner full of really outdated garbage and should feel bad. :|

[Meeplelard]

Nightmare Select is only worth it if you REALLY want a specific relic on that banner and even then it's questionable.  I did 100 Gem pull because why not? Sadly gave nothing.


Beat the FF8 Cid Mission.  Wasn't actually that hard once you get how the fight works, namely both get way stronger the instance one dies, so you really want to chip them down together.    Was struggling at first thanks to their magic, but then subbed Laguna out for Fujin, egged her up a bit, and thus I could run Shellga and Protectga at the same time while still having an RW for Onion Knight BSB (which Edea spammed.)  Otherwise, Seifer uses Gaia's Cross to draw all the Counter Lariats to him (That + Protect + a Synergy Heavy Armor = he takes 800~ per Lariat), Selphie heals, Fujin uses Gust because I have a +40% Wind on equipment for her and it's MT, Edea covers the Hastega stuff (both the RW and Inaugural Parade, the latter mostly there to offset Slowga), and Irvine Breaks.  Won with a single Medal Lost due to Seifer and Selphie dying late in the fight, but by then it was feasible to YOLO so I did.

[Shale]

That U+ CM is the first and only time I've cast Rinoa's OSB in any meaningful fight, but it dealt 99,999 damage and set things up for a near-simultaneous kill so I'm happy about that.

[hinode]

Oh god the status spam from Demon Wall was insane. Looks like I really need to figure out if Necrophobe is beatable with my current gear.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

What are your support SBs? Just about any AoE ATK+MAG debuff deals very well with Nightmare Necrophobe.

[Shale]

Mote Ifrit CM down, with mastery to boot despite three KOs. Never considered it a priority, but Edea's burst is just that good.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Alas, poor Ifrit.

[Magic Fanatic]

Man, this FF12 U+ CM was awful.  I mean, I did it, but still.  It was almost Release Day Fragment Ifrit all over again.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

My problem with the fight in the end wasn't even the status, but their offense just gets nuts as their HP dwindles. Crazy touch-and-go battle if you don't carefully disable the Mandragoras (and statusing them has its own problems). THAT SAID, having both SSB and BSB for Ashe, Fran's AoE ATK+MAG debuff and Gabranth's SSB, I just went Leeroy Jenkins on them, my AoE was good enough to blitz them down. Mastered with only Ashe and Gabranth himself standing.

[Magic Fanatic]

Yeah, I finished that fight with only Ashe standing against a blinded Topstalk after he screamed at Basch and Balthier for 9K damage each.

Then Ashe goes and manages to evade for seven turns for the kill with her BSB.

[Meeplelard]

Beat the Cid Mission for FF3 finally.  Don't remember exact set up but my strategy was essentially:

Ingus: Mostly just damage.  He has his SSB, so that's mostly why I used him specifically.  Also stuff like Saint's Cross is good and all that.
Arc: Heals.  A big thing is he has his SSB AND his +Res Medica.  The latter proved more useful since that extra +50% Res was vital.
Desch: Blinding Ahriman is a big boon, and otherwise DPS'd with the Onion Knight RW; he also has his En-Thunder SB, so between turns he might fire that off and use Chain Thundaga
Onion Knight: Is level 98 (yeah, I should just get him to 99 for the RM at this point) and dived to have Support 5 so you can probably figure out what his role was!
Refia: I have her BSB so she basically just existed to punch him a lot...with fire...

Wasn't too bad but not trivial.  Now what was awful was the Cid Mission.  I tried multiple Raines RW methods, those failed, then saw on Reddit this one guy has a ridiculous Edgar twinked for the Cid Mission so went with that.  After multiple attempts I finally got it.

My strategy was...
Vaan opens with his SSB; it's MT, power breakdown effect, and boosts Vaan's damage.  Vaan then uses Blazeblitz since I really want to take down all 5 at the same time.
Ashe spams Bahamut and then Alexander; her damage is absolutely key above all else, you'll see why!
Penelo does Multibreak and then Ultracures.  I probably should have given her the Armor Breakdown or Mental Breakdown dances to raise my damage, but meh, I so rarely use those, I am not into wasting resources just for that.  Alternatively, could have given her Faith for Ashe, so Ashe's damage is better allowing for more flexibility.  I realize this after I already started the fight and had several failed attempts and didn't want to lose the RW for the day.
Larsa Heals and casts Protectga.  Thank god FF12 is one of the few realms with a 2nd character who can pull off White Mage.
Basch exists as the tank.  He's built defensively, in back row, using Gaia's Cross, because I just need him to last long enough between RWs.

So basically...here's everything that COULD go wrong and screw me over:
-Any sort of major status that screws with me on someone other than Larsa and Penelo (or Vaan late in the fight.)  Shouldn't have to explain why this is bad.  TWICE I lost because near the end, they got a successful sleep on Basch right before the RW fired.
-Protect getting cast on anything.  Oops, that's one Mandragora that's surviving the 2nd the attack and he's just going to murder Basch now.
-Shell getting cast on anything.  Same deal, since now Ashe's damage is mitigated too much.
-early Shout spam and such.  Don't have to explain this.

Probably others but the fight is so dumb and stupid and I don't even remember it from FF12 and IT ONLY WORKED IN FF12 IF SO BECAUSE FF12 IS STRUCTURED IN A WAY TO SUPPORT THIS STYLE OF FIGHT.  Hell, FF14 had this fight in the Hildibrand one and it was REALLY STUPID there and that's closer to FF12 style.  DeNA, stop using these guys; no one likes them, it's an example of everything wrong with RK's poorly designed fights, and they're not even memorable despite what you think.

[Shale]

18 or so months into the game, I finally pulled on an FF7 event banner.

100 gem: Sephiroth's Glove
2/11: Double Prism Rods.

Not gonna lie, I would really have liked Ultima Blade or the USB, but this'll do. I've got Yuffie's medica so Aerith will be perfectly fine with Fury Brand in Cid missions (plus I have no FF7 boostga, so crit boost can do that job), and that glove is +dark which means Cid Raines will get a lot of mileage out of it. It'll help the FFXII CM, too, because I've got Gabranth's AOE dark SSB!

Speaking of which, ouch. Best I've done is to kill all but two Mandragoras going with a traditional tank-and-spank approach -- Gabranth draws fire and saves up for Fulminating Oblivion spam, Vaan blinds the blind-able enemy and saves up for Pyroclasm spam, Basch dispels everybody, Larsa heals, Penelo dances and Ultra Cures. If I can't get the stars to align on that by tomorrow, I'll either go for a more gimmicky RW solution or train up Balthier for status spam.

[Scar]

Decisions decisions...

150 mithril. I could use some me we gear in FF7. The banner
has no dupes.

But the celebration is close.

Hmmm

[Shale]

Cid Mission down! What put me over the edge was to dive Basch's knight sphere, of all things. He was the only attacker not spamming AoE damage in the DPS race phase of the fight, and Aegis Strike just so happens to be AoE. I RWed a wall to max out his defense, hasted the team one by one with the single target spell and RMs, and won on the first try. Hooray!

[Meeplelard]

Finished the FF7 event in entirety, including Multiplayer and Cid Mission.

Kind of a joke compared to the FF12 one.  Thinking on it, my FF7 Synergy isn't that much better than my FF12 one, at least the angle I took (I didn't use Cid's Shout Clone I had, forgetting I had it when fighting Rufus, and didn't use Planet Protector since Aerith was too busy Medicaing), but really, the fights themselves were a lot easier.

Rufus is really just a lot of damage with some dispel involved on both ends, so he can remove your haste, and you're encouraged to remove his (Read: Bring Angeal, he helps a lot!)  Dark Nation is more a nuisance that you want killed quickly, and neither of them are particularly durable.  I'm not sure I really needed Yuffie using Dances but they didn't hurt.  There's no real tricks, just conventional fight where the numbers are high enough to be threatening, the haste manipulation aside.

It contrasts the Mandragoras which...well...we all know how that was.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Raid Sephiroth was so incredibly vanilla I didn't even bother searching for a MP team to handle. Very little to say, really. Ultima Weapon being a DPS race was sorta cute, but that couldn't even stand up to Alphinaud's BSB taking the bulk of the DPS duties (ran Alph/Celes/Krile/Cait Sith/Vanille for the fight). Wind Blade off typical synergy + 8* Cid's Goggles makes for utterly nuts offense.

EDIT: Ashe, Faris and Minwu all gotten to L99. I thought I'd be able to breathe, but then the game released Eiko's MC3 and I want her at 5k+ HP given I have her Burst.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Torment Gigases were somewhere between "ouch" and "... wait, this actually isn't that bad". Setups:

Part I

Y'shtola (L99, Curaja R5/Wrath R4 - Dr. Mog's Teachings)
Quistis (L99, Mental Breakdown R4/Wrath R4 - Ace Striker)
Palom (L80, Ruinga R4/Chain Blizzaga R3 - Battleforged)
Cait Sith (L80, Heathen Frolic Sarabande R4/Multibreak R3 - Knight's Charge)
Papalymo (L99, Meteor R3/Chain Firaga R3 - Mako Might)

RW: Metamorphose

Full-kit Wrath'shtola is stupid good for Torments: SSII, Asylum and Aetherial Pulse cover so much mitigation I can't even fathom running another healer. Freeing up the Wall slot? Freeing up two slots otherwise grafted to Shellga and Protectga? AoE Curaga + Stoneskin effect alongside Medica and instant Curaja commands? Off -that- SB-gauge building setup? Sign me up please. She's like a swiss-army survival kit. Palom and Cait Sith cover AoE stackable debuffing (Palom also does double duty on crowd control alongside Potato, since this Torment's mobs like coming up in large numbers and those damned grenade bombs LOVE their MT physicals), Papalymo covers Hastega and buffing while being another crowd control monkey and Quistis does the bulk of the trash handling once her gauge picks up. The big problem in this dungeon is that you NEED to have all your mitigation (Wall+Shellga+Protectga) up BEFORE the Gigases show up, because the Thunder Gigas always opens with Thunderbolt, which scores 3k+ AoE damage THROUGH SHELLGA AND ELEM RESISTS, and they all start with fixed ATB. You will -never- put up SSII or SG before their turn unless you Powerchain into it beforehand (so, setup is necessary no matter what). A pre-emptive magic blink also helps, since the other two Gigases also always open with a Boulder. This said, the fight is very patterned, with zero RNG outside of who the Gigases target (they always use their magic on set turns), so if you can manage the bases, you're very much set. Deal with the Gigases one at a time, prioritize Thunder Gigas first (highest damage, lowest HP), leave Ice Gigas and his obnoxious perfect Blizzara counters for last. Quistis was clutch for downing Thunder Gigas quickly, too. EDIT: Nevermind, scored CM first try.

Setup!

Cid Mission

Minwu (L99, Ultra Cure R4/Protectga R3, Dr. Mog's Teachings)
Leon (L80, Full Charge R4/Lifesiphon R4, Lionheart)
Gordon (L80, Curaja R5/Full Break R3, Battleforged)
Leila (L80, Lifesiphon R4/Powerchain R3, Mako Might)
Josef (L80, Meteor Crush R3/Magic Breakdown R4, Ace Striker)

RW: SSII

I dove all of them for some stats off those cheap 3* motes and it wasn't a half-bad idea. In the end, everybody in my party had over 6000 HP (Minwu was the funniest, since I dropped him a Cat's Bell, propping him up to 7.1k HP, the highest in the party!). This said, the crux of the setup was really Minwu master race: the Burst kicks ass for handling the trash and the SSB is a hell of a panic button even now. In the same vein, instant Curaja from the Burst commands also rules. I thought I'd never use Josef's AoE boostga, but it was pretty great here, I used it to stack with HotE for great results against the Gigases and I had complete overkill SB for spamming my stuff (necessary, considering how hone-intensive Torment is). I ran out of SG juice by the time the Ice Gigas was alone, but, at that point, I was in no risk of losing even though I triggered a triple counter from him from Spell Sap XIV. Whoops, not triggering that bug again. Instant AoE Curaga to the rescue, though. No mastery under this setup, but that's what my first run was for.

Part II

Y'shtola (L99, Curaja R5/Wrath R4 - Dr. Mog's Teachings)
Quistis (L99, Protectga R3/Wrath R4 - Ace Striker)
Alphinaud (L99, Shellga R3/Valigarmanda R1 - Battleforged)
Cait Sith (L80, Heathen Frolic Sarabande R4/Multibreak R3 - Knight's Charge)
Celes (L99, Gaia's Cross R3/Saint Cross R3 - Mako Might)

RW: Ley Lines

More of the same, only with 100% more Valigarmanda+Alph BSB shenanigans being gloriously stupid against AoE fights. Seriously, a single Valigarmanda under the relevant boosts shaves off 80k~ HP from the fight total and Alph's summons also bypass Ice Gigas' counters. Celes was mostly nice for mitigating some of the trash mobs' offense. They ended up being -easier- than Part I mostly because Valigarmanda is so absurdly good when you can spam it.

[Meeplelard]

Everything but Cid Mission completed.  I'm actually half tempted to draw on Banner 1 this event, since my FF13 synergy is starting to look a bit shaky.

[Magic Fanatic]

Pulled the lever for the new Realm LD.

Freya's BSB, Steiner's BSB, and Mustadio's Superbreak SSB.

Not the best outcome, but still decent?

[Shale]

2/11, Luneth's SSB dagger and Agrias' new shield. Both characters I have bursts for so I pretty much just got stat boosts, but an FF3 weapon is nice to have and Agrias could get mileage out of en-holy at some point. Plus I have all her moves again, so that's neat.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

1/11 Venetian Shield. Not -great-, but it's another synergy armor for FFT, another Agrias SB (I only had Cleansing Strike for her) and another option for a holy team. I'll take it.

[Meeplelard]

Everytime FF9 is involved in a Lucky Draw, I tend to not do well.  I pretty much always go 1/11, and get a relic from FF9, and this time was no exception.

Though to be fair, this time I at least got a decent relic in Beatrix's BSB, so I can't complain too much, but it's just bizarre how it's basically happened every single time.